Wireless communications devices such as the BlackBerry™ by Research in Motion Limited enable users to download map content from web-based data sources such as BlackBerry Maps™, Google Maps™ or Mapquest™. Downloaded map content is displayed on a small LCD display screen of the wireless communications device for viewing by the user. The user can pan up and down and side to side as well as zoom in or out. When panning into new geographical areas, however, there is sometimes a noticeable lag in rendering the map because of the limited over-the-air (OTA) bandwidth, i.e. the device cannot download all of the map data fast enough to seamlessly pan the map. In some instances, certain aspects of the map can be rendered because the corresponding map data is downloaded first, but further details on the map (e.g. roads, landmarks, etc.) cannot yet be rendered because the map data corresponding to those further details has not yet been downloaded. In those cases, the user might erroneously think that all pertinent details of the map have been completely rendered onscreen when in fact only part of the requested data has been downloaded.
Accordingly, a technique for conveying to the user of the wireless device that a portion of the requested map data is either unavailable or still being downloaded would be highly desirable.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.